Welsh artist's stuffed eBay fox becomes Russian internet sensation

Welsh artist Adele Morse stuffed this fox and sold it on ebay - it's now an internet sensation in Russia

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A stuffed fox has become an internet sensation in Russia – all thanks to a Welsh artist.

Adele Morse, originally from Blackwood near Caerphilly, has seen the fox which she stuffed as part of an art project appear alongside Joseph Stalin, Barack Obama and Keanu Reeves in computer generated images created in the former Soviet Union.

And she’s been inundated with e-mails from Russians wanting to buy their own version of the strange looking creature.

Vegetarian Adele is not a taxidermist, but much of her work deals with the world of animals, including evolution, anthropology and cryptozoology – the search for animals whose existence has not been proven.

“When I was young my mum used to take me to National Museum Wales in Cardiff and I’d always look at the cabinets of stuffed animals, “ she said. “Six or seven years ago I decided to give it a go myself.

“I have contacts with groundskeepers, so if they find anything that they think I’d want, they contact me, even if it’s bones. It was the first time I’d been offered a fox so I wanted to take the opportunity to see what it was like to stuff.

“When I did the fox I wasn’t happy with him at all. I initially wanted him to be stood up but I didn’t have much time to complete him and I was really unhappy with him.

“It ended up being a lot stranger than I anticipated.”

Islington-based Adele put the fox in a box and forgot about it, getting on with her project on the mysterious Sumatran Orang-pendek ape. But this autumn, she rediscovered the fox.

“I almost threw it away but when I saw that sweet little face I decided to sell him on eBay. I got lots of interest and sold him to a guy from Manchester for £330, way above my estimate.”

It was only when Adele logged into her eBay account a couple of days later that she discovered e-mails from fans of the fox.

“From nowhere I was getting e-mails from Russians telling me they loved the fox or wanted one. A blogger got in touch from Russia and asked to interview me.”

It transpired that the images of Adele’s stuffed fox had become an internet sensation among Russian web enthusiasts.

Tech whizzkids had used image editing software such as Photoshop to put the fox in unusual places alongside unexpected people, and there were fans showing up in the most unusual places.

“He told me that the fox had become a celebrity in Russia. A couple of days later a Moscow newspaper wanted to speak to me. He took a photo from my blog of a girl in a fox T-shirt thinking it was me and published it, but the girl turned out to be Anna Veduta, the press officer of Russian politician and activist Alexei Navalny.”

Adele was e-mailed images of the fox with Barack Obama, Keanu Reeves and even as part of the famous “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photograph.

“It’s so strange seeing something that I’ve made inspiring someone and being put into different situations. I like the picture with Keanu Reeves, just because it makes no sense. There are so many – people send me links every day, I must have seen about a thousand. They say that because of his pose, he fits anywhere,” she said.

Some of the images, known as internet memes – meaning an idea or image that spreads online – also had a distinctly Russian slant, including pictures of the fox, who is loosely referred to as “intoxicated fox” with Joseph Stalin, as a cosmonaut and even as one of the members of Russia’s jailed protest girl band, Pussy Riot.

“I asked what it was about the fox that they liked and he told me that the fox looks a bit sad and drunk and that’s how Russians feel.

“His plastic eyes give him a glazed look and they identify with it, they think it symbolises the nation.”